The Gang of Four
by RedBeardJim
Summary: What if "The Wish" wasn't Anya's first time meddling in Sunnydale? Willow POV, early 1st season


The Gang of Four  
  
RATING: PG for some vamp-related violence and one swear word.  
DISTRIBUTION: Please let me know, but yes, if you want to.  
DISCLAIMER: This is my first attempt at fiction since high school, about 15 years ago. Clearly, I'm not Joss Whedon, to whom all these people belong.   
See Author's Notes at the end.  
  
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It's getting harder to remember every day, so I'm going to try to write it all down before it's gone. I know that we were the Three Musketeers, Xander and Jesse and I, the We-Hate-Cordelia Club, best friends since forever. We were inseparable until that Harvest thing last week, when...we lost Jesse. It's still so hard even to think that, much less to say it. Xander's still got that haunted look in his eyes most of the time -- it's been there since he had to stake his best friend. Of course, finding out that vampires are real and that our new friend Buffy was something called the "Slayer" might have something to do with the whole "haunted" thing, and if you look at it that way then "haunted" even makes more sense what with the whole supernatural deal and ...  
  
I hate when I do that.   
  
Anyway. I remember growing up, the three of us against the world, all for one and one for all. I remember when the worst enemies we had were Queen C and her pack of Cordettes. And I know that that's real.   
  
But I also remember the Gang of Four.   
  
Willow and Xander and Jesse and Cordy. She'd been Cordy ever since kindergarten because Jesse couldn't say "Cordelia" any better than I could say "Alexander". And we were inseparable, best friends, the whole bit. All through elementary school it was a rare day that none of us put in an appearance at one of the other Gang members' houses. And it didn't matter if we were playing Commando Adventures in Xander's back yard, hide-and-seek in Cordy's huge house, or having a movie-and-pizza fest at Jesse's place, as long as we were all together. Nobody's parents minded (well, Jesse's and Cordy's didn't mind; mine didn't notice, and Xander's didn't care, but that's beside the point). Sometimes Cordy and I did "girl stuff" together while Xander and Jesse did "guy stuff", but most often we were the Gang.   
  
Things started to change during junior high. Cordy'd always been pretty, prettier than me, although we'd had plenty of makeover parties where she'd helped me with makeup and hairstyles and clothes and stuff (her mom knew a lot more about that sort of thing than mine...not saying much). After sixth grade, Cordy's folks committed the ultimate sin and split up the Gang, taking Cordy to Europe for the summer. We cried for days before she left. The three of us tried to keep the magic going that summer, but it just wasn't the same without her. Jesse in particular seemed to miss her, even more than me; he was so down that Xander and I spent a lot more time together than usual. That's when I first started to fall in love with him. Yeah, that part's still the same. So's his obliviousness. Oh well.   
  
Anyway, Cordy came back at the end of the summer, and she'd changed. She'd been pretty before; now she was beautiful. And woman-shaped. And she and Jesse took one look at each other and it was over. Although we were still the Gang, it was clear that the Gang of Four had in a sense become the Gang of Two and Two Others. We still all hung out together, we still had fun together, but Jesse and Cordy had something extra, something that Xander and I couldn't enter into. I don't think we really felt any resentment; we were still just as close to them as we had been. It was just that they were now closer to each other, doing things like holding hands and kissing and suddenly staring off into space with goofy grins on their face at times when the other one wasn't there. I've never seen two people more in love.   
  
It wasn't always perfect, of course. They fought from time to time, over little stuff and big stuff. We all had, all the way through school. Xander and Cordy especially had tempers, but we always managed to patch things up within a day or so, and so did Cordy and Jesse once they started dating.   
  
But sometimes there just isn't enough time.   
  
I still remember that night at the Bronze quite clearly, although the rest is starting to fade. We were all there, the Gang of Four having the time of our lives, when it happened. I don't even know what set them off, but one minute Jesse and Cordy were sweating it up on the dance floor and the next she was storming off. Xander and I were at our usual table, talking to this new girl named Buffy (so far she seemed nice, in a kind of ditzy LA sort of way), when Cordy stomped up, grabbed her jacket, and headed out the door muttering under her breath. We looked at Jesse to gauge the severity of the damage, and decided between ourselves that whatever had happened, he was still too mad to go after her just then. It was okay, they'd be lovey-dovey again by morning. He'd dance and talk with some other girl to cool off, and we'd head out. He'd call Cordy when he got home.   
  
Only the girl turned out to be a vampire. And we never saw Jesse alive again.   
  
Xander and I looked for him that night, but got attacked ourselves, and Buffy rescued us. That's when we found out about the whole vampire/Slayer/Hellmouth deal. Amazing what you can come to consider "normal" if you don't know any better.   
  
Cordy was frantic the next day; she knew their routine as well as we did and had been expecting that call. And then Jesse never showed up at school. Xander and I told her what had happened to us the previous night, and about Buffy and Giles and all, but I'm not sure how much of it managed to get in through the panic. I'm not sure how much of it *I'd* managed to really absorb yet, but the possibility that Jesse had been killed or worse was flashing at my brain like a big neon sign. I don't think I heard a single word one of my teachers said that day.   
  
We went out that night, the three of us, against the strong warnings of Buffy and Giles, 'cause we just couldn't let him go without looking for him. And we saw him. Staggering through the park, looking like hell. Dazed, sweet, bruised, clothes all torn up. Cordy just freaked and ran straight to him, despite our efforts to hold her back. They grabbed each other and held on, and we heard her sobbing as he said "Hey, babe" the way he always did. Then we saw his face change. Buffy'd warned us about that, that it wouldn't be him, just "the thing that killed him wearing his face", but it didn't sink in until we saw his eyes go all yellow and the fangs appear. Cordy couldn't see it, but she could feel it when the Jesse-thing grabbed her hair and yanked her head over to the side. Xander and I rushed in and managed to tackle them apart before it had done so much as break her skin. Xander had a stake with him, and I had a cross (we hadn't *completely* ignored what Buffy and Giles had said), and between us we managed to keep the vampire off-balance until Xander was able to drive the stake into its heart. And we watched, Cordy in complete stunned horror from the ground where she'd fallen, as the face and body of our best friend, the Fourth of the Four, the love of Cordy's young life, went black and crumbled into dust.   
  
Cordy let out a scream that didn't sound human, and then just sort of froze. Just sat there on the ground, staring at the spot in the air where Jesse's face had been, with a couple of tears running down her cheeks and absolutely no expression on her face. Xander and I went over, helped her up, and grabbed her in a desperate three-way hug. We were both crying so hard at that point that we didn't notice right away that she wasn't. She just had that blank look; blank except for her eyes.   
  
We kept an eye on her for the next couple of days; I knew she was hurting, but couldn't get her to talk to me. She went through the motions of school, but anyone could see how much pain she was in. Two days after Jesse died, I spotted her after school got out talking to some girl I'd never seen before under one of the trees in the lawn. Cordy was full-out sobbing, and I could see her talking through the sobs, barely pausing for breath. At first, I was kind of angry; we were her *best friends*, couldn't she talk to *us* about this? Why was she spilling to this complete stranger? Then I realized that Xander and I were probably too tightly connected to her pain for her to be able to face us yet. As long as she was talking to *someone*, I figured it would do her good.  
  
I didn't want to pry, but I wanted to make sure Cordy was OK, so I sort of sneaked closer, in time to hear the stranger say something about "and what do you want?" Cordy's reply was low, but I heard the words "wish I'd never loved him...it wouldn't hurt so much". The stranger's reply was very clear: "Done."   
  
And that's where that set of memories, that entire version of my life, ends. It must have been a spell of some sort; I think the main effect must have been on Cordy's parents, making them meaner and snobbier so that it rubbed off on her early. Maybe the reason I can still remember is that I was so close to the source, maybe there's some other reason. But the memories are fading, getting dimmer. I can feel it happening day by day. Probably it's some side effect of the spell, a delayed reaction or something, and when I've finished writing this down I'll forget where I put it or something. But for now, I remember. I remember having a best girlfriend my whole life, someone to squeal about the New Kids with, dish about Jesse's kisses, cry to about Xander's bone-headedness, and laugh with each year at the Snoopy Dance. I remember the joy of chasing each other on the playground, dressing each other up before junior-high dances, and thinking up tricks to play on the boys.  
  
I remember the Gang of Four.   
  
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AUTHOR'S NOTE: This idea grabbed me about 5 this morning and wouldn't let go, so I spent most of today cranking it out when I should have been grading tests. What if the Jossverse we know was the *original* Wishverse? That idea got combined with the recent bit where Buffy can still remember Dawn crying when their folks got divorced even though she knows that Dawn isn't real and the memories aren't real, and this story is what got spat out. I don't think I have a real good feel for the Willow "voice", but I didn't see Xander as the sort to write stuff down like this (or even notice, really). I'm also struggling with having Anya be the demon who grants the wish, as Cordy wasn't really "scorned" or "betrayed" in this universe, so if anyone can help with some rationalization for that I'd be much obliged ;^)


End file.
